Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the Russian dictator, standing and addressing a crowd. (November 1917)
(Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Russia signaled her withdrawal from World War One soon after the October Revolution of 1917, and the country turned in on itself with a bloody civil war between the Bolsheviks and the conservative White Guard. Jonathan Smele charts this turbulent episode in the forging of post-tsarists Russia.
Did you know?
After Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed by Bolshevik forces in July 1918, the killers hid the victims’ mutilated bodies. The remains were discovered and exhumed in the late 1970s near Yekaterinburg, Russia, and eventually identified through DNA testing.
In 1914, Russia was hardly prepared for war. Just nine years earlier she had been defeated in a war with tiny Japan. The Revolution of 1905, when revolts and uprisings had forced the Tsar to concede civil rights and a parliament to the Russian people, had also shaken the empire.
By September 1917, Lenin believed the Russian people were ready for another revolution. However, other Bolshevik leaders were not yet quite convinced. On October 10, a secret meeting of the Bolshevik party leaders was held. Lenin used all his powers of persuasion to convince the others that it was time for an armed insurrection. Having debated through the night, a vote was taken the following morning -- it was ten to two in favor of a revolution.